While the counting of challenged ballots continues and there is still the issue of the inappropriately uncounted absentee ballots to be resolved by the Minnesota Supreme Court, it is VERY encouraging to see that the current Minneapolis Star-Tribune estimate for the result of the challenged ballots projects Franken to come out of the resolved challenges with a 171 vote lead. This is a big enough lead that the US Senate would probably seat Franken, pending the outcome of the court challenges.

These projections WILL be changed somewhat by the recount board, but they should be pretty good ballpark projections for a final total (without any votes added because of the uncounted absentee ballots). The good news is that the Star Tribune projections are much more optimistic than the Franken camp's projections, which estimated that Franken was up 8 votes total if all challenged ballots were allocated per the decision of the County recount official who first judged them.

http://senaterecount.startribune.com/bal lots 

RACE AT A GLANCE - Close
Resolved challenges                                                                                   
                                              Coleman    Franken    Other/no one  Remaining     
Current recount totals           95             19             38                      6,742             
Challenged by Coleman             3             06             00                      3,088           
Challenged by Franken           92             13             38                      2,877           
Ballot Challenge projection       2,897     3,256         413                            0             

Current vote totals

                                               Coleman            Franken           Margin
Current Recount                   1,209,030    1,208,766       Coleman  264
Projected After Recount           1,211,832    1,212,003        Franken  171

The Tribune projects that of a total of 6,566 total challenged ballots, Franken will receive 3,256 votes, Coleman will receive 2,897 votes and Other/No One will receive 413 votes. This would give Franken a 359 vote lead in the recount and combined with Coleman's current pre-recount lead of 188 votes would produce a Franken lead of 171 votes.

So, while there are probably still many twists and turns to come in the recount, things are looking very good for Al Franken's chances of winning Minnesota's Senate seat right now.